Cutting in Icicle Creek Canyon

[Winter]

Bush wants to cut in Icicle Creek Canyon.

 

The National Forest policy will have an impact on our favorite places.

 

Steep as a cow's face?

 

 

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Dr. Flash Amazing now laughs.

 

Several months back, the Doctor hypothetically presented the pro-extraction right-wingers with a similar scenario, and wondered which side of the fence they'd come down on. Well, boys, the chainsaws are coming to your favorite playground, bidden by your man in the whitehouse. Enjoy the uncluttered views, bitches.

[Greg_W]

Please post article, can't get past sign-in screen.

[forrest_m]

January 3, 2003

U.S. Trying to Save Washington Forest by Cutting It Down

By TIMOTHY EGAN

 

 

LEAVENWORTH, Wash. — In a valley that has known both terrifying wildfire and deep-scarring logging, there is considerable skepticism whenever government officials show up and say they want to start taking out trees.

But that is what happened a few weeks ago, when the Bush administration named the land around the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery here as one of 10 places nationwide where officials plan to test a new policy of trying to save forests by first cutting them down.

"We had people calling us saying, `They aren't going to clearcut the valley are they?' " said Corky Broadeus, a spokeswoman for the hatchery, which was once the world's largest salmon nursery, and is on federal land in the Icicle Creek Valley, just outside the Bavarian-themed village of Leavenworth.

The spectacle of big fish returning to a mountain town of Wiener schnitzel and year-round Christmas lights after swimming past five dams and up 500 miles of the Columbia River is one of the big draws to this valley on the east side of the Cascades. No matter how much maypole dancing is going on above ground, as long as the creek that runs through here is cold and clean, Leavenworth is an excellent place to spawn and die — for salmon.

Without adequate forest cover, though, the creek could warm, harming salmon. But government officials say they have no plans to resume the kind of logging that ripped apart national forests and choked salmon streams in the 1970's and 80's.

Still, even simple thinning of public forests has become too cumbrous and bureaucratic, Bush administration officials say, and they want to show how it can be done by speeding up environmental appeals. The goal is to prevent catastrophic fire in areas where fire has been suppressed for a century, allowing the forest to build up.

Eventually, the administration wants to expand the policy of streamlining the environmental process to as many as 190 million acres of public land at high risk of fires.

The project is part of President Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative," announced in August. After Congress balked at approving the plan, the administration — with several announcements in the last month — has been trying to enact core aspects of the program by giving government land managers more leeway.

By skirting a resistant Congress, the focus of the Bush administration's management of public lands moves out of Washington and into communities such as Leavenworth.

The people who live in this valley are somewhat surprised to be on the initial project list of forests to be thinned. What they want from the federal government is money to enhance the salmon hatchery, opening up the creek to natural spawning.

"They don't have funds to restore the river, but now there's this money to start cutting trees," said Harriett Bullitt, who owns the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat, which borders land along the hatchery in Icicle Creek where the government wants to thin trees. "It sounds suspicious."

Bush administration officials say fire prevention is the top priority.

"We're trying to expedite our processes in order to prevent catastrophic damage to our forests and rangelands," said Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton.

A team will soon start surveying trees to be cut in the small island of green surrounded by steep mountain walls that burned in two epic fires, in 1994 and 2000. The earlier fire burned for three weeks, destroyed 19 homes, and eventually joined two other fires in consuming 181,000 acres.

Typically, before the government may cut a stand of trees, it must solicit public comment and write a report on what impact the logging would have on fish and wildlife. The administration plan would suspend these reports in some cases, and would streamline them in others.

Critics of the plan say President Bush is using fire prevention as a way to resume large-scale logging and get around environmental laws.

"It all looks like arcane regulation, but what it adds up to is maximum discretion with minimum public accountability," said Jay Watson, a West Coast official with the Wilderness Society. "This administration believes the pendulum has swung too far for conservation. But they are fighting majority sentiment trying to go back the other way."

Mr. Watson pointed to a Forest Service survey of 7,069 people, published in September, which showed majority support for wilderness, and little support for logging and snowmobile access to public land, which the administration also favors.

Some Fish and Wildlife Service biologists here are concerned that the thinning plan might strip the valley of some of its remaining tree cover.

"I told them I don't see any need here to take out trees close to the river, which is great wildlife habitat," said Julie Collins, a federal biologist.

But federal officials say they plan to take out only small trees, and will do so judiciously. The intent is to prevent more fire in a sliver of land surrounded by high mountain walls.

"You've got slopes in there that are just steeper than a cow's face," said Pam Ensley, a regional fire director with Fish and Wildlife. "By streamlining the environmental assessment process, we can do this fire prevention work more quickly."

Ms. Bullitt, whose family is a major contributor to environmental causes, says she doubts the government is interested only in fire prevention.

"They want to get a little foot in the door, and then go much bigger," Ms. Bullitt said.

Leavenworth used to be a railroad and logging town, then went nearly bust before resurrecting itself as a year-round tourist center. Signs are printed in German and English, a testament to the old country visitors who want to see what the new country knockoff looks like.

The hatchery dates to 1939, when completion of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River blocked off 1,200 miles of spawning habitat for one of the world's great salmon runs. To make up for the lost fish, the government created a series of hatcheries on the eastern slope of the Cascades.

The idea was to hatch fish from eggs in cement ponds on Icicle Creek, which flows into a part of the Columbia that was not blocked by Grand Coulee. Some years, the salmon returns have been anemic.

But in recent years, large numbers of chinook, or king salmon, have made their way to the Icicle, providing fish for this community and for Indians who still net the fish from platforms, in the traditional way.

By removing some of the barriers to more water just above the hatchery, biologists say they can reopen the creek to natural spawning of salmon, steelhead and bull trout. But now that the money to open the channel appears uncertain, community leaders have stepped in, offering to raise $300,000 and do it themselves.

They say the government is welcome to thin some trees around the river, so long as it does not harm the creek that nourishes a run of fish that may be better known in Germany than it is in the United States.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy

 

[Winter]

Post the letter when you send it.

 

Edited January 3, 2003 by Winter

[Greg_W]

Thanks, forrest, for posting that. I will be writing my representatives in Congress, I would encourage you all to do the same.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

So, it's a bunch of whiny, left-wing, liberal, trees-before-jobs environmentalist paranoia when we want, say, ANWR left un-fucked-with, but when the corporate greed disguised as environmental policy comes around to your playground, it's time to take a stand? Put a stop to that bullshit?

[allthumbs]

STFU doofus

[pope]

DFA is a prophet, and I suggest y'all listen.

[allthumbs]

DFA's a f'in idiot and I have better things to do. Like find the G-spot .

[Winter]

I ain't defending DFA, but isn't it a bit hypcrytical to argue for resource extraction in someone else's backyard whilst trying to defend your own? Do you simply let Bush cut Icicle Creek or do you respect everyone else's interests and rights to protect their own special places? The conservatives always scream for local control but now Bush wants to cut in there without any public comment from the local folks?

 

Holy shit ... maybe I am actually defending DFA.

[MtnGoat]

So where was it said there will be no public comment, exactly?

[allthumbs]

Hi Goat. Nice to see you can type one sentence like the rest of us.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Holy shit ... maybe I am actually defending DFA.

 

Don't worry, it'll stop hurting after a day or two.

[RobBob]

Jees, can you imagine Goat making a public comment?

[allthumbs]

Be nice to him and maybe he won't elaborate

[RobBob]

Hey DFA, I suppose that you are opposed to drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska?

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Dr. Flash Amazing is opposed to all drilling except for bolts and two-finger pockets.

[allthumbs]

Hell, DFA's so anti-drillin' his old lady got a 12 volt battery charger and a high performance dildo for Christmas.

[Winter]

So where was it said there will be no public comment, exactly?

 

Sorry, I was commenting on info. from other sources. I've pasted an excerpt from the Pres' website. His plan is to create two "cateogorical exclusions" (a "CE") for fuels reduction projects. A CE is a technical legal term refering to projects that DO NOT GO THROUGH THE PUBLIC COMMENT process under the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"). NEPA is one of the key statutes that the public uses to demand adequate participation and public disclosure of true env. impacts. The administration intends to take away the public's right to participate in the planning process for these types of projects.

 

1.Facilitate Reviews of Forest Health Restoration and Rehabilitation Projects.The

Departments of Agriculture and the Interior are proposing to identify high priority

forest health projects and move forward quickly with this important work.Critical

environmental stabilization and rehabilitation projects in the aftermath of wildfires

will also be expedited.This work will be conducted under the authority of two new

“categorical exclusions,” a determination that such projects do not result in

significant impacts,eliminating the need for individual analyses and lengthier

documentation under the National Environmental Policy Act.These categorical

exclusions will allow federal land managers to authorize forest health (thinning)

and rehabilitation and stabilization projects such as reseeding and planting without

unnecessary environmental analysis.

The hazardous fuels reduction categorical exclusion will only apply to projects

identified in a manner consistent with the collaborative framework in the 10-Year

Comprehensive Strategy Implementation Plan adopted by federal agencies and

state,local and tribal governments this spring.

These hazardous fuels reduction activities would not:(1)be conducted in

wilderness areas (or where they would impair the suitability of wilderness study

areas for preservation as wilderness);(2)include the use of herbicides or pesticides;

(3)involve the construction of new permanent roads or other infrastructure;(4)

include timber sales that do not have hazardous fuels reduction as their primary

purpose.

 

 

[Jim]

Here's an exerpt of an NY Times article in August 2002. Though thinning is not a bad idea in limited circumstances, it's safe to say that with Bush's track record, and the timberheads he's put in charge of the Forest Circus and Interior, that this is a ploy for bigger and better ideas.

 

Even as President Bush urges increased thinning of national forests, some scientists caution that there is little evidence to show that thinning will prevent fires at the

catastrophic scales seen in the West this summer.

 

Moreover, some scientists say they believe that "one size fits all" thinning, performed without adjusting for differences in soil and vegetation, could damage ecosystems and actually make forests more vulnerable to fire.

 

Last week, at the site of the worst fire in Oregon, Mr. Bush

announced that he would ask Congress to streamline rules to expedite thinning projects. The Forest Service has spent more than $400 million in the last two years to reduce fuel loads in the forests.

 

To drive home the benefits of the agency's programs, Mr. Bush pointed to two areas along a road, one unthinned and devastated and the otherthinned and relatively unharmed.

 

But scientists point out that other factors, like shifting winds or

different kinds of fuel, may have influenced the outcomes. Although a few studies have shown that thinning reduces fire intensity on asmall scale, no controlled studies have been conducted on whether large-scale thinning works or how best to carry it out.

 

"A forest scale is so big, you don't just thin and then you're done,"said Dr. Don Erman, an emeritus professor of ecology at theUniversity of California at Davis and the leader of a 1996 federalstudy, the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, that extensively examinedthe role of fire.

 

When thinning a forest, Dr. Erman said, "you are creating new growthof all kinds, and you create a situation that encourages fires."

 

Judging from that research, he said, thinning may need to be repeatedas often as every two years to be effective. That grace period couldbe extended with prescribed burns."

 

It's a treadmill you have to be on all the time," he said. "And

realistically, that can't be done. Agencies can't carry it on in

perpetuity."

 

Jerry Williams, director of fire and aviation for the Forest Service,said the agency's plans did not end with thinning. "The key torestoration is the reintroduction of low-intensity fires," he said.

"To get there you have to take some of the heat out of the woods. Noone is talking about thinning and walking away."

 

But cost could get in the way of proper thinning. A recent Forest Service study put the cost of thinning 1.6 million acres of forest in the Klamath Mountain region of southwestern Oregon at $2.7 billion, an average of more than $1,685 an acre.

 

Other research calls into question a main justification for thinning: protecting the housing that has proliferated around the edges of federal forests. The Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Mont., the premier laboratory to study fire behavior, recently found that the only thinning needed to protect houses ^× even in the most tinder-dry forest ^× was within a "red zone" of 150 to 200 feet around the building.

 

"Regardless of how intense the fire is, the principal determinant isbased on the home and exterior characteristics," said Jack D. Cohen, a research scientist with the fire laboratory, which is part of the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station. Mr. Cohen has studied houses burned in Los Alamos, N.M., the Bitterroot and other

large blazes.

 

 

[RobBob]

While I'm liking Bush's enviro record less and less, I am suspicious of NY Times writings. "some scientists" and "ecology professors" can say anything. You hire your scientists, I'll hire mine...

 

What I want to hear is what the preponderance of scientists say. And I want to know what their credentials are and who funds their work.

[j_b]

So where was it said there will be no public comment, exactly?

 

you mean to say that a whooping 18% of the potential vote does not constitute a mandate for cutting trees but it is a blank check for war?

[mattp]

Under a different president (Clinton) the same District presided over the "salvage" of timber damaged by the first of the Leavenworth fires and the operation did not appear to be oriented toward the "salvage" of damaged timber, thinning, fire prevention or anything else but plain old logging. I watched slingload after slingload of fullly green (unburnt) trees being flown down to the landing, and if you walk up the Snow Creek trail and look at the stumps it is pretty clear that they were harvesting the big trees and leaving the little ones behind. How much fire hazard can be left after two massive fires and how could anyone believe that more cutting in that canyon would be any better?

[Jim]

Yes, the infamous "salvage rider" was not a good thing either. It bugs me when natural resource policy is so political. And when groups hide their real intent. If you want to cut more timber to satisfy local timber jobs then just say so. Don't try and throw a cloak of unscientific "fire control" over the issue. It's a public relation ploy.

 

I think Robbob was asking about who the scientists were in the NYT article. I think the posted section mentions two Forest Service guys, who are funded by you, the taxpayer, and another out of UC Berkley, most likely a NSF grant. The Fire Research Center in Missoula is ahead of the curve on this issue, I was suprised to see them quoted in the article and not yet muffled by the Administration.